The makeover that began when the Dodgers lured Andrew Friedman from Tampa is essentially complete with the official announcements of four hirings – Josh Byrnes as senior vice president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi as general manager, Gabe Kapler as director of player development and Billy Gasparino as director of amateur scouting.

The group has some things in common. They are young – Byrnes, 44, is the only one older than 39. They are well-educated – Zaidi might be baseball’s first GM with a doctorate. They had an understanding of high finance even before taking over baseball’s most expensive team – Friedman worked as an analyst for Bear Stearns, Gasparino worked as a stock broker and Zaidi’s Ph.D. from Cal is in economics.

And they all have a deep and sophisticated belief in the virtue of statistical analysis in evaluating players and constructing rosters – even Kapler, a 12-year big-leaguer who is the only one of the group to play above the Class-A level.

But the Dodgers hope the group represents the best of the second generation of analytical executives that have flowed into the game in the wake of the original “Moneyball” revolution – a trite label as outdated now as the idea that a scouting-vs.-sabermetrics choice is an either-or proposition.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily fair,” Friedman said of any characterization that he had assembled a front office focused solely on numbers-crunching. “I think all of these guys are incredibly well-rounded and appreciate all that goes into making players what they are and evaluating players. So we’re going to have really strong, good evaluative voices that are more focused on the subjective and couple that with the objective information that we’ll be able to generate.

“For us, information is king and it’s about having people that appreciate that and can synthesize that information to put us in the best position to make decisions.”

Zaidi, 37, becomes the 11th general manager in Dodgers history after a playing career that he readily admits consisted of being a left-handed Little League first baseman of highly limited skill while growing up in the Philippines. He acknowledges that his background and association with the original “Moneyball” team in Oakland will make him a prime candidate for quick labels.

But he laughs off those labels, vowing that “you can’t be too dogmatic about one approach” and be successful in baseball.

“The way I view this operation here is – we’re the Dodgers, we have incredible resources, we have high expectations. We need to be the best at everything,” said Zaidi. who spent 10 years in the Oakland A’s front office. “I don’t think we’re in the position to make tradeoffs of saying ‘We’re a stat organization’ or ‘We’re a scouting organization.’ We want to do everything at the absolute peak level.

“I just think we’re trying to create a culture where there are no silos, where we work on things collaboratively and collectively.”

That presents another challenge to those viewing the restructured Dodgers hierarchy from afar. Zaidi is surrounded by former GMs – Friedman, Byrnes, Ned Colletti (moved into a senior advisor role), Gerry Hunsicker (another special advisor) and even Tommy Lasorda (who held the GM title briefly after retiring as manager). Friedman will clearly be “the point man,” as Zaidi put it, but each of the three – Friedman, Byrnes and Zaidi – could initiate discussions on trades or free agents.

“Farhan will focus a lot on the major-league roster and acquisitions. Josh will focus a lot on the scouting and player development part of the operation. But both guys are going to touch everything,” Friedman said. “It’s a massive operation and our vision is to be as good as we possibly can be in every facet – on the development side, domestic, international scouting, the way we use information throughout, the way we prepare at the major-league level. All of those things are incredibly important so having all three of us touching different things at various times puts us in the best position to be not only the best we possibly can be but to do it quickly as well.”

Friedman praised Zaidi for having a “very flexible, fluid thought process” that both embraces the newest analytics but also recognizes the value of old-school scouting – what team president and CEO Stan Kasten called having “wise, old owls” such as Hunsicker included in the decision-making process. With the A’s, Zaidi would fire off a siren when talk in the room became too stat-centric. During a TV interview from Dodger Stadium on Friday, Zaidi warned his former co-workers in Oakland that he had left the siren in his office there – but intended to pack it up and bring it to L.A. with him.

“This is my perspective on this,” Zaidi said. “I view any new stat, any new metric with an inherent skepticism. My view of statistical models … they are our attempt to create this mathematical representation of a real world that’s impossibly complex. Every mathematical model is a gross simplification of reality.

“So every time you see a metric you’re always asking yourself not just what it’s telling you but what it’s missing – because there’s always something it’s missing. That’s something we’ve talked about a lot – having an awareness of the limitations of those things, knowing what they tell us but also what they’re missing.”

NOTES

Friedman said the Dodgers’ major-league coaching staff will return intact for 2015. Along with Manager Don Mattingly, that means bench coach Tim Wallach, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, hitting coach Mark McGwire, assistant hitting coach John Valentin, first-base coach Davey Lopes, third-base coach Lorenzo Bundy, bullpen coach Chuck Crim and assistant pitching coach Ken Howell. … The Dodgers completed their August trade for right-hander Kevin Correia by sending cash to the Minnesota Twins. Correia was acquired for a player to be named later or cash considerations. He went 2-4 with an 8.03 ERA in nine appearances (three starts) for the Dodgers.

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